Benchmark: Nullish coalescing, logical OR

Tests:

Nullish coalescing (??)
let x = undefined ?? 1;
Logical OR (||)
let x = undefined || 1;
Nullish coalescing (??) [short-circuit]
let x = 1 ?? undefined;
Logical OR (||) [short-circuit]
let x = 1 || undefined;

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Nullish coalescing (??)
Logical OR (\|\|)
Nullish coalescing (??) [short-circuit]
Logical OR (\|\|) [short-circuit]

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 25 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'll break down the provided JSON and explain what's being tested, compared, and analyzed in the context of JavaScript microbenchmarks.

**Benchmark Definition**
The benchmark definition is empty, which means that it relies on user-provided scripts to define the tests. The `Script Preparation Code` and `Html Preparation Code` fields are also empty, indicating that no special setup or configuration is required for running the benchmarks.

**Individual Test Cases**

There are four test cases in total, each representing a different variation of the nullish coalescing operator (`??`) and logical OR (`||`) operators. The test cases are:

1. `let x = undefined ?? 1;` - This test case uses the nullish coalescing operator with an `undefined` value on the left side.
2. `let x = undefined || 1;` - This test case uses the logical OR operator with an `undefined` value on the left side.
3. `let x = 1 ?? undefined;` - This test case uses the nullish coalescing operator with a non-`undefined` value (`1`) on the left side.
4. `let x = 1 || undefined;` - This test case uses the logical OR operator with a non-`undefined` value (`1`) on the left side.

**Nullish Coalescing Operator (??)**
The nullish coalescing operator (`??`) is a relatively recent addition to JavaScript, introduced in ECMAScript 2020. It returns its right-hand side operand if its left-hand side operand is `null` or `undefined`, otherwise it returns its left-hand side operand.

**Logical OR Operator (||)**
The logical OR operator (`||`) returns its first operand if the expression is falsy, and its second operand if the first operand is truthy.

**Comparison**

In this benchmark, two operators are compared: nullish coalescing (`??`) and logical OR (`||`). The comparison aims to determine which operator is faster in terms of execution speed.

**Pros and Cons**

* Nullish Coalescing Operator (??):
	+ Pros:
		- More expressive than traditional OR operators for handling `null` or `undefined` values.
		- Can be more efficient due to its ability to short-circuit the evaluation process.
	+ Cons:
		- Less familiar and intuitive than traditional OR operators for some developers.
* Logical OR Operator (||):
	+ Pros:
		- More widely supported and understood across JavaScript engines.
		- Can be used in a variety of contexts beyond just null or undefined handling.
	+ Cons:
		- May not be as efficient as the nullish coalescing operator due to its evaluation process.

**Library and Special JS Features**
There is no library mentioned in the benchmark, but it does utilize some special JavaScript features:

* Nullish Coalescing Operator (??): As mentioned earlier, this operator was introduced in ECMAScript 2020.
* Logical OR Operator (||): This operator has been part of JavaScript since its inception.

**Other Alternatives**

For handling null or undefined values, alternative operators and methods can be used:

* Traditional OR operators (`|` or `or`):
	+ Pros: Widely supported and understood across JavaScript engines.
	+ Cons: May not be as efficient as the nullish coalescing operator due to its evaluation process.
* Conditional expressions (ternary operators):
	+ `x = a ? b : c;`

Keep in mind that the choice of operator or method depends on the specific use case and desired behavior.

**Benchmark Results**
The latest benchmark results show that Chrome 112, running on Windows Desktop with a high execution rate (`ExecutionsPerSecond`) for each test case. The results suggest that the nullish coalescing operator (`??`) is faster than the logical OR operator (`||`) in this specific context, likely due to its ability to short-circuit the evaluation process.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/112.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 112 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Nullish coalescing (??)	13421010.0 Ops/sec
Logical OR (\|\|)	13260146.0 Ops/sec
Nullish coalescing (??) [short-circuit]	2920657664.0 Ops/sec
Logical OR (\|\|) [short-circuit]	2940441600.0 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Nullish coalescing, logical OR (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Nullish coalescing (??) vs Logical OR (||) vs Nullish coalescing (??) [short-circuit] vs Logical OR (||) [short-circuit]

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Nullish coalescing (??)

Logical OR (||)

Nullish coalescing (??) [short-circuit]

Logical OR (||) [short-circuit]

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 25 days ago):